


Drought of sleep

by itoisla



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anxiety, Best Friends, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Everyone Needs a Therapist, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Marriage, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 14:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20259292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itoisla/pseuds/itoisla
Summary: It was not her intention really, to end up regularly sleeping with Malfoy,And she wasn't even really sleeping with him, she literally just slept next to him,If anything it was most definitely the fault of the room of requirement,And Hermione was sure she could come up with a perfectly reasonable psychological reason as to why she felt the need to sleep with the nephew of her torturer.But maybe it was just because no one likes to be alone."Shut up Granger, no one will sleep if you keep thinking that loudly."





	Drought of sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Just wanted to add in case any of these would upset you, this chapter contains mentions of nightmare, anxiety and PTSD

_Someone will think an axe murderer is roaming around the castle._

Four in the morning and she was not even bothering to light her wand, with her black hooded robe covering her face as she steadily made her way through the hallways.

_God, she must look like the bloody Baron._

_Or a death eater_.

Her humour evaporated. She tipped the hood off her head with a single motion, her hand skimming her greasy hair.

At night the castle was almost silent, and it was both peaceful and terrifying. Maybe that’s why she did this, her routine of staying in the library until 3:30 and then wandering until sheer exhaustion forced her into her bed. Hermione welcomed the peace and quiet of the hour; something that she rarely found in her thoughts. And the pure terror of seeing misshapen forms in the shadows was a method to release her pent up anxiety on disfigured curtains.

Her eyes gazed at the familiar passageway, the 4th-floor corridor that connected the grand staircase and the transfiguration classrooms. During the day, it was a crowded aisle filled with bustling students all trying to shove their way forward in vain. But at night, it was a dim tunnel with soft lights that lined its sides until the darkness swallowed the flickering candles. The glowing lights that decorated the stone walls, highlighted the cracks that drove deep into the rocks. Her fingers trailed across the cold bricks, catching on the rough edges.

Silence only broken by her muffled steps, a gentle repetitive thud on the thick carpet, socked feet sinking into the rug. Not wearing shoes was more of a hazard than comfort but it wasn’t like anyone would tell her off for it._ Because they’re all sleeping like normal people_, her mind rather unhelpfully pointed out. _Sleep is for the weak_, she answered back; although she wasn’t fooling anyone, including her and... herself. God, she needed some sleep. Hermione inhaled, the smell of musty carpet filling her nose; it was calming. Her mind, however, without rest, as usual, ran through the list of her duties for the next day;

_Tomorrow,_  
_ she had to check in on Harry to make sure he hadn’t convinced himself again, that everything was his fault._  
_ And then it was Fred’s funeral at 1._  
_ And then she needed to visit Molly, who was barely existing as it was._  
_ And then she needed to go to the library and make notes of memory spells._  
_ And then help McGonagall with some duties with helping to rebuild the school._  
_ Oh, and avoid Ron._

Hermione pushed the list away. But the weight didn’t fade. She sighed, breathing in the cool air. Tasting the dust.

Each day came and each day there was so much to do, and yet each day she wasn’t able to finish all the tasks. Always running behind schedule. Late. Failure. She never took failure very well. Except now she wasn’t failing a class. Here she was failing those she loved.

Hermione hated the day time.

At night, there was nothing to do. No crying people to comfort, no people to convince she was okay, no new burdens to take. At night, time ceased to exist.

Just her, the darkness and the candles.

One of her favourite places was the astronomy tower. Or the great Hall. She always loved the stars.

But tonight, she felt her headache and her eyes tire although she knew as soon as she put her head on her pillow the thoughts would come roaring back like a river, drowning her mind. Maybe if she could find a place to rest, Hermione knew better than to wish for sleep.

Hermione found herself on the seventh floor, her feet carrying her to the corridor. She shrugged in the empty hallway, mostly to convince herself there she didn’t have a good reason not to use the Room of Requirement. The moon’s light shone on the floor gilding the sandstone with silver, she dragged her feet across the freezing stone; she mumbled her desire to the room,

“A place to sleep,  
No wait, a place to rest, crap it won’t work if I change the desire, aargh fine  
A place for my thoughts to shut-up "

Hermione groaned preparing herself to walk past the wall 3 times again, this time trying to come up with a single wish, but she halted, watching the wooden vines snake across the wall in intricate patterns until it formed a solid door. The Room of Requirement understood her conflicting brain more than she did.

She pushed the door open, wondering what a “place for my thoughts to shut up” would be.

She registered the sound of a roaring fire and the sound of a rainstorm. Her eyes landed on a fireplace that burned away in a flurry of warm yellows and oranges. An interesting assortment of jewel-toned rugs and soft blankets covered the floor, two armchairs facing the hearth. She saw: an arch window at the rear end of the room that displayed dark grey clouds swirling with relentless rain beating against the glass. The room was small enough for Hermione to place her back against any wall while still being able to observe the entire space. That alone eased the tension in her shoulders. On the far left lay a four-poster double bed with emerald curtains.

“A place for thoughts to shut up” was a very nice place.

Hermione gazed at the carved bookshelf, but exhaustion was a far more demanding and convincing factor that had her padding towards the bed. Maybe, maybe here with the ferocious rain and the crackling fire, she’d be able to fall asleep before her thoughts came back screaming.

She opened the curtains and her first reaction after seeing that the bed was in fact occupied, was to freeze, terror running in her veins. This was something she had not prepared for. Her instincts took over her muscles the next instant, and she was stumbling back away from the bed faster than her mind could even attempt to comprehend the situation.

She had asked for a place for thoughts to shut up, not for Draco Malfoy in bed. This was what happened when you don’t keep to one request.

She gracefully tripped over a woollen blanket, landing on her bum. She hissed a curse at Merlin.

“Granger?” his bewildered voice asked.

“Hello,” she said standing up, adjusting her clothes; If she was less tired, she would be far more embarrassed she mused.

“Am I dreaming?” Malfoy murmured more to himself than her.

“What in Merlin’s name are you doing here?” Malfoy asked, reality creeping into his eyes, making his facial expression sharper as he became more lucid. His eyes flicked towards the exit as if checking it still existed.

“I don’t know, I wanted a place to rest and I guess I didn’t specify that I wanted to be alone…” Hermione was an intruder. This was his place to sleep, to be vulnerable.

“Right, so.” He exhaled before dragging himself out before heaving himself out of bed. “I’ll leave”

Hermione blamed her lack of a response, as she watched him run out of the room, on her lack of sleep.

_She hadn’t meant to kick him out-_

_She should follow him-_

_Even just to lend him her hooded robe seeing as he was only in flannel pyjamas-_

But, Hermione saw the way he never met her eyes.

Feeling defeated but not understanding why she threw herself on the bed not caring in the slightest that he had just slept in it. She closed her eyes and as if a dam had opened her thoughts came rushing in, gushing over every crevice of her mind, drowning her voice of reason.  
The usual judgmental voices floated around her, swirling around her as if she were in the middle of a whirlpool. She shifted to her side to watch the competing rivers snake down the windowpane.

He never met my eyes. Not meeting the eye, a classic sign of social anxiety. Was he seeing a mind healer? Was anyone concerned about him, Hermione knew that many students were shunning Malfoy…

_Harry’s stopped eating properly, need to talk to his mind healer… he shouldn’t be so alone_  
_ Late come on Hermione we can do better_

_Molly keeps talking about Fred in the present tense - maybe ask Arthur to keep her busy until the funeral._

  
_ Tick, tock, it’s been nearly 2 years now- look up brain damage from memory spells_

_McGonagall needs your help… you’re running behind_

_Did you see the way he never met your eyes, why, what did you do_

_Ron is your friend too, you’re the one abandoning him._

_I’m not good enough_

She scrunched her eyes shuts already anticipating a headache._ Godammit Malfoy_, all Hermione wanted was for her internal anxiety to be quiet. Although she should have anticipated that other students would also want to use the Room of Requirement. The water on the glass glinted silver as a roar of thunder cut through the sound of rain.

By the time sleep, dreamless, pitch black, sleep devoured her anxious mind, the storm was over and the sky was bleeding peach into the blue. Hermione slept undisturbed for a meagre amount of time until a soft alarm woke her up (the room equipped with both an alarm and a traumatized boy). She was not refreshed or rejuvenated, often waking up after so little sleep felt worse than getting no sleep. But she exhaled, relief filling her chest for the lack of nightmares. She surveyed the room with longing before she forced herself out of the door.

Her feet touched the stone floor; warm from the morning sun. The shriek of the owls and the rustling of robes indicated the day had started. Light filled the stone corridor, blinding sunlight that illuminated every crevice, vanquishing the last remnants of the darkness that tried to hide. The candles extinguished, their soft light being replaced by a harsher one. She glared at the sun before sprinting down the hallways back to Gryffindor, her feet slapping the marble floors.

She forgot about Malfoy, barely having time to think as she rushed from the seventh floor back to Gryffindor dormitories and then to the Great Hall. The memory of the night before only coming back to her as she opened the folded parchment dropped on her plate by a school owl. In elegant cursive that she wasn’t familiar with, the scrawl read:

_I’m so sorry,_

_It doesn’t make anything better._

_But God, I’m so sorry._

**Author's Note:**

> Alright bear with me, the first chapter has very little Draco but don't worry they'll actually interact in the second one. You might not like this but I'm attempting to put them in a situation that makes sense for both of them to share a bed, because let's be real traumatised and guilt ridden Draco is unlikely going to want to sleep next to the one person his nightmares are centred around. At first.


End file.
